The majority of the audience, especially the audience that would attract advertisers, is not offended by the music as it was recorded and would likely be offended by what is, essentially, butchering someone else's art to satisfy an artificial construct...a format that must evolve quickly or die.
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Musical selections that seem out of character
- Thread starter vchimpanzee
- Start date
The majority of the audience, especially the audience that would attract advertisers, is not offended by the music as it was recorded and would likely be offended by what is, essentially, butchering someone else's art to satisfy an artificial construct...a format that must evolve quickly or die.
And the reason those stations, for the most part, evaporated more than 20 years ago and were replaced by AC stations that played hits was because a generation had aged in that did not want to hear cover versions.
But can you hear him perform? I always assumed he had a role in making the songs that we couldn't actually hear, but he's starting to seem like Andrew Ridgely.
Again, I never heard "Goodbye to Love" until about fifteen years ago.
And the stations I have listened to included "some fairly raucous big-band, swing and bop". Jeff Rollins did "Big Bands Remembered" when the Jones merger happened. One song a day. Charlotte's standards station has played "Sing, Sing, Sing"--the long version. But when it is jazz, I don't mind. Or even what Brian Setzer has done. I can even accept anything Elvis Presley does. The Carpenters and Christopher Cross have done nothing that would put them in those categories. The guitar just sounds like evil rock and roll.
And I was a weird kid too.
Generally, it's Richard on piano and when you hear a voice harmonizing with Karen, that's him.
Okay, but the difference is that anytime you distill it into a nostalgia format, you've changed the dynamic.
MOR stations sounded very little like the nostalgia stations based on the music those MOR stations used to play. The original was broader, more inclusive...again, "Goodbye To Love" went to #2 on the Easy Listening Chart but only #7 on the Hot 100.
There are some songs where I clearly hear a male voice, like "We've Only Just Begun", and I think he sings by himself at one point in that song. By the way, I heard this song on my grocery store's Muzak on Saturday, which is very unusual. They haven't played The Carpenters when I was there in a long time. So this is proof that format, whatever it is, is very conservative for an AC. Whether it actually was The Carpenters or not, I'm not absolutely sure. The volume is kind of low in most areas, which is a relief for me since it IS AC.
It's possible I've never heard an MOR station like you're describing. I remember an AC where I live being described as MOR (actually, that station was more conservative than the AC I had to listen to when it changed), and when that station returned to music after a period of time as an all-news station, the new format was MOR. Only it sounded very much like "adult standards" did in the early 90s. That was innovative back then, as other stations at that time were "big band". I didn't even hear Stardust for five more years after that.
Now that I think of it, Broadcasting Yearbook listed soft ACs as "MOR". "Adult contemporary" was more like Hot AC, a term that didn't even exist.
Charlotte has a really good standards station though its Arbitron ratings, when last reported, needed a microscope. Not only does it lean much more toward the big bands than Timeless Classics before it became Timeless Favorites, or even Dial Global, but it has a lot of unfamiliar versions of songs.
So it comes as even more of a shock to hear the likes of "Everybody's Talkin'". I even heard "Along Comes Mary", which sounded positively bizarre there.
So it comes as even more of a shock to hear the likes of "Everybody's Talkin'". I even heard "Along Comes Mary", which sounded positively bizarre there.
The local morning show had "Proud Mary". However, it also had "Round and Round" by Perry Como on another day, which is just about as off the wall on the other end.
In the car somehow it sounded more like this.
I have stereo but the station is not in stereo.
"How Long" has a worse guitar solo.
I forgot this. Wednesday, the local morning show had "Y.M.C.A." I like it, but I'm not certain it would fit on Dial Global.
"You're No Good" was the Name That Tune song and I think it was also the first one in the Six-Pack, which is either the six most requested songs or the Name That Tune song and the five requested songs. Those songs are followed by the last commercials and, if we're lucky, all or part of Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky Theme", usually with the station owner who is also the morning DJ talking during some of it, if not all of it.
It's baseball season, and that means John Fogerty's "Centerfield" on the morning show.
I like it.
This morning on Dial Global, Karen Carpenter's lovely voice on "Goodbye to Love", but then it has that screaming guitar which i will once again argue is unneccessary. The solo in the middle would be harder to take out but you don't need what's at the end.
I like it.
This morning on Dial Global, Karen Carpenter's lovely voice on "Goodbye to Love", but then it has that screaming guitar which i will once again argue is unneccessary. The solo in the middle would be harder to take out but you don't need what's at the end.
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The song "Death on Two Legs", from Queen's "A Night at the Opera" would never, ever fit on an Soft CA/EZ Listening/Adult Standards station. But, "Love of My Life" from that same album would be a great fit.
The issue is not the "sound" of the song but whether it is familiar and liked by a soft AC audience.
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And just what is a "Soft AC" audience? You keep engaging in circular logic. Play this kind of song to attract this kind of audience, then claim that the audience only likes that certain kind of song. Human beings aren't as narrow-minded in their tastes as radio programmers think that they are. Human beings are much more broadminded and diverse than people like you give us credit for. Just because people in your industry have such a low opinion of us doesn't mean we're such simple-minded sheep as you portray us.
We're talking about standards, not soft AC.
I heard "Louie, Louie" on the local morning show.
And I think the "sound" does matter. There's a lot of junk getting mixed in with the real standards. Some of the soft AC that gets mixed with the real standards and the oldies is okay, but some of it sounds strange.
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I've been thinking about this a lot today, as I had to spend more time in the car than usual, meaning more time trying to find a radio station that didn't make me hit the change button on every other song. I'm just about ready to puke if I hear another burned-out "hit" that has been played into the ground.
And then it hit me. Radio stations are among the worst businesses in the country when it comes to self-promotion. So, since radio stations do such a piss-poor job of reaching out to new listeners, they struggle to hang on to the ones that they already have. They're more concerned about chasing away one of their extremely limited supply of listeners that they don't dare do anything that might bring them new listeners. Even if they could trade one aging, soon-to-be-out-of-demo listener for every two new, in-the-desired-demo listeners, they won't do it because they don't have a clue how to let potential listeners know what great new and exciting programming they have to offer.
You have to wonder how an industry that makes its profits from convincing other businesses that they should spend money on advertising does such a pathetic job of advertising themselves.
Based on what you've said in many posts, I suspect that a station could be programmed with music that you and many, many other people would tune in to, if they knew that this new station was on the air. I suspect that there are underserved (or totally unserved) market segments out there that advertisers would line up in order to reach, but none of the limited collection of "official" radio formats really reach them. Whenever anyone tries any sort of outside the box format, the industry allergy to promotion to reach an audience pretty much guarantees that it will fail.
And then it hit me. Radio stations are among the worst businesses in the country when it comes to self-promotion. So, since radio stations do such a piss-poor job of reaching out to new listeners, they struggle to hang on to the ones that they already have. They're more concerned about chasing away one of their extremely limited supply of listeners that they don't dare do anything that might bring them new listeners. Even if they could trade one aging, soon-to-be-out-of-demo listener for every two new, in-the-desired-demo listeners, they won't do it because they don't have a clue how to let potential listeners know what great new and exciting programming they have to offer.
You have to wonder how an industry that makes its profits from convincing other businesses that they should spend money on advertising does such a pathetic job of advertising themselves.
Based on what you've said in many posts, I suspect that a station could be programmed with music that you and many, many other people would tune in to, if they knew that this new station was on the air. I suspect that there are underserved (or totally unserved) market segments out there that advertisers would line up in order to reach, but none of the limited collection of "official" radio formats really reach them. Whenever anyone tries any sort of outside the box format, the industry allergy to promotion to reach an audience pretty much guarantees that it will fail.
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